Game of Thrones, Season 2, Ep 7 “A Man Without Honour”

Intro: I’m watching Game of Thrones for the first time. I don’t know anything about it more recent than this episode.

The North: Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon… I knew you’d get into trouble letting that wildling woman live, and here we see exactly how. The two of them wake up in the morning and she immediately starts teasing him about his ways with women, or rather lack of them. He forces her to walk, and… she leads him straight into an ambush of her fellow wildlings. Of course. An idiot could have seen that coming – good thing Jon’s not an idiot, then.

Jon’s a good fighter, but I don’t see him getting out of this encounter without being captured. He’ll either have to engineer an escape later, or wait for his fellow Night’s Watchmen to rescue him. I don’t really have a feel for which is more likely. Probably the rescue, because that will give the commander another chance to chew Jon out for stupidity. The other option is he escapes, then finds the remainder of his patrol… dead! That would be quite dramatic, so maybe that’s a possibility.

Winterfell: Theon is livid that Bran, Hodor, Bran’s younger brother Rickon (I gave up trying to remember his name from the scant mentions during the show and looked it up), and Osha have escaped Winterfell. He sets out to hunt them down, using tracking dogs. Meanwhile the escapees flee across country and discuss taking refuge in a farm, but decide not to because Theon’s men might torture them to reveal where Bran and company are. Theon reaches what looks like the same farm, but no encounter with the fugitives is shown.

At the end of the episode, Theon returns to Winterfell and tells the townspeople how swift and harsh his justice is. He has two charred bodies hauled up for all to see – children about the size of Bran and Rickon. It’s pretty obvious that these are not actually Bran and Rickon, though, as we never saw Theon find them. Presumably he gave up the futile chase but decided he needed an example to be set, so had two farm children murdered to supply the props.

Theon really looks like he’s losing it. Every time he speaks, I expect to see foaming spittle spraying from his mouth. This must be years of repressed anger at having had to live with the Starks finally coming out. He’s so clearly unhinged that I don’t see any way that he can hold on to his meagre gains for much longer. I expect Robb’s force will arrive and crush Theon and liberate Winterfell, but who knows where Bran and the others will be by then – probably captured by some other lurking hostile forces in the wilderness. Wildlings venturing south of The Wall, perhaps?

Robb’s Camp: Robb receives the messenger from Cersei with her rejection of his of his peace terms. He doesn’t quite shoot the messenger, but because he’s a Lannister, Robb has him penned up with Jaime. Robb then flirts some more with the field nurse who is treating his men, offering to take her to some place to procure medicinal supplies from a man there.

In the prisoner pen, Jaime pretends to be friendly with the messenger, before smashing his face in to create a distraction. When a guard enters to investigate, Jaime strangles him with his chains and grabs the key. But he doesn’t get far before being recaptured and brought in front of Cat Stark. The guard’s father is furious at his son’s murder and demands Jaime’s head, but Cat talks him out of it – for now. Later Cat enters the pen with Brienne to talk to Jaime. The guy just doesn’t know when to shut up for his own good and baits Cat, so much so that she asks Brienne for her sword…

And the scene cuts and we don’t see what happens next. I don’t think Cat will kill Jaime, at least not here, or the episode would have shown it. I’m not sure what she’s planning to do with the sword though – maybe cut off an ear or something to send to Cersei. That’d be fun.

Harrenhal: Tywin thinks the guard killed by the poison dart is part of some plot to murder him, and orders Gregor “The Mountain” to investigate. Tywin then invites Arya to have some dinner with him! Ha, the irony! Arya eats, fondling a steak knife while she stares at the back of Tywin’s neck as he lectures her. I so wanted her to stab him right here and now, but she quickly hides her fantasy as Tywin turns to face her. He’s pretty sharp and realises Arya is more educated than a typical stonemason’s daughter, pegging her as more high-born than that.

This is dangerous for Arya. It seems like just a matter of time before Tywin figures out who she is. I just hope she sticks that knife in him before it gets that far. And remember now she only has one assassination favour to call on from that ex-prisoner who has helped her twice now. I had another thought about this: The prisoner so far seems a bit too reliable – surely he must be hiding some dark secret. Perhaps when Arya cashes in her third assassination favour, the guy will turn into some sort of evil genie and claim Arya’s life somehow. That would seem like a suitable price to pay.

King’s Landing: Sansa has a nightmare about her attack, and wakes to find blood in her sheets. It’s her first period and she realises she is now a “woman” – which means soon she’ll have to marry Joffrey. She panics and tries to get rid of the evidence, and her handmaiden tries to help, but apparently anyone is allowed to wander into Sansa’s bedroom because half the castle soon knows about it. Cersei has what passes for a “motherly” talk with Sansa, full of not-so-subtle threats and insinuations. Sansa falls back into her utterly blank mask of professing her undying love for Joffrey.

Poor Sansa. It’s hard not to feel utterly sorry for her predicament. She’s doing the best she can, but is totally powerless and has nothing to look forward to but marriage to a lunatic and a life of misery. I had another thought too, based on my previous knowledge (before I started watching the show) of an event called “the red wedding”, which I wrote about before I started this project. I realise now that this might well refer to the wedding of Joffrey and Sansa. Oh dear. I fear for Sansa’s life – I honestly wouldn’t put it past Joffrey to murder her just minutes after marrying her. I can totally see her letting slip one tiny misgiving at the wedding feat and him running her through with a sword right there in front of everyone. That’d fit the bill for a red wedding, I’d say.

Oh, and Tyrion has a bit of a chat with Cersei, in which she admits she can’t control Joffrey and suspects he might be a punishment from the gods for her incestuous relationship with Jaime. Great, not even Cersei can save Sansa from her son.

Qarth: Daxos offers to help Daenerys find her missing dragons, but she rebuffs him again. A council meeting of the Thirteen rulers of Qarth is assembled to discuss the theft of the dragons. Daxos springs a surprise: the old shrivelled wizard guy appears and a bunch of agents step out and slit the throats of everyone on the council except Daxos. Whoa! Daxos declares himself King of Qarth – a thing which apparently never existed before. Oh dear… Daenerys might be in trouble for rejecting him now.

Honestly, all this kerfuffle with Daenerys and her dragons just seems to be marking time until the dragons grow up and she attacks King’s Landing with them. In order for her to have something to do, there’s random intrigue and stuff. But eventually you know she’s going to have her dragons and they will grow up and she’ll lead an army with them. The ruins of Harrenhal serve as a blatantly obvious foreshadowing – they were impregnable to land armies, but utterly ruined by dragonfire in an aerial assault. TYrion and Arya discuss this in this very episode. “Impregnable” fortification… King’s Landing, anyone? Tyrion is planning to defend the place with artificial dragonfire, but you just know the real thing will be far more devastating. It’ll happen, you mark my words. I hope I don’t have to wait another 4 seasons to see it.

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